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OCCUPIED CITY TBC
Out of the past…
★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY CINEMAS
From 12 Years a Slave to the richly textured Small Axe anthology, director Steve McQueen’s historical testimonials brim with ambition and resonance. Yet even by those standards, the director delivers something unprecedented with this 262-minute mix of documentary and psychogeography, contemplating Germany’s World War Two occupation of Amsterdam by way of the pandemic. Inspired by his wife Bianca Stigter’s book Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945, McQueen combines footage of the Netherlands capital circa lockdown with voiceover accounts of wartime horrors.
Sometimes the images and narration illuminate one another, sometimes they diverge. And sometimes the points made are perhaps opaque; elsewhere, though, McQueen’s intent is more emphatic. The accounts of antisemitic atrocities horrify, while overheard discussions about ‘memes and shit’ contrast starkly with reports of executions.
Even with a 15-minute interval, the four-hour haul can make for challenging viewing. But McQueen’s sometimes gliding, sometimes still camera captures tableaux that invite interpretation and active engagement, deepened by ambient scoring and suggestive bursts of pop (Bowie, notably). When we reach the shot of a Ukrainian girl, the result emerges as a serious-minded work of great cumulative power: a dispatch from history for a precarious present.
THE VERDICT McQueen’s demanding doc is a rigorous and rewarding watch: meditative, melancholy and layered with meaning.
THE JUNGLE BUNCH WORLD TOUR TBC
★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY
CINEMAS
This globe-trotting sequel to 2017’s The Jungle Bunch, itself spun off from a French kids’ television series, sees penguin Maurice (Scott Humphrey) and his fellow misfits travel the world in search of a scientist who can foil an evil beaver’s plot to destroy their tropical home. Chaotic adventures follow, many of them derivative of superior mainstream fare (Ice Age, Kung Fu Panda). Yet a visit to an animal alt-Paris does fleetingly tickle, while the target audience’s chaperones may appreciate the nods to Raiders and Mad Max’s Furiosa.
GASSED UP 15
★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY
CINEMAS
As swaggering and revved-up as its swooping moped gang, this self-consciously 'street' crime drama skids into a predictable cautionary tale. George Amponsah's feature centres on London teenager Ash (Stephen Odubola), whose phone-swiping skills embed him in a ruthless Albanian crime family. Amponsah makes nimble use of GoPro cameras, dropping you into the whizzy, adrenalin-pumping bike raids. But a clunking script and one-note characters keeps it far short of the bleak brilliance of, say, Tbp Boy. Odubola, who gives Ash a nicely bewildered decency, is frankly wasted here,
OUT OF DARKNESS 15
★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY
CINEMAS
Formerly known as The Origin, first-timer Andrew Cummings’ spare chiller follows a group of early human settlers as they try to make a new home in desolate territory, only to find themselves being picked off from the shadows. A Stone Age Scream? It’s more a Paleolithic Prey, as resourceful ‘stray’ Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green, one to watch) steps up to take on the unseen predator. A third-act pivot disappoints, but Cummings (aided by Saint Maud DoP Ben Fordesman) deftly taps into a vein of primal horror during the suspenseful low-lit encounters.
MIGRATION TBC
★★★★★ OUT 2 FEBRUARY
CINEMAS
Illumination’s latest animated feature feels featherlight, even when served with a bonus Despicable Me short. A migrating mallard family flies from the US to Jamaica, despite the misgivings of worrywart dad Mack (The Big Sick’s Kumail Nanjiani). The journey is slowed down by episodic capers along the way, while Mike White’s screenplay lacks the respective satire/warmth of The White Lotus/ School of Rock. The big-eyed expressions are enjoyably Looney Tunes, and the younger characters get a couple of big laughs. But overall it’s hard to give a duck.
THE SETTLERS 15
★★★★★ OUT 9 FEBRUARY CINEMAS
Framed as an arthouse western, writer/director Felipe Gálvez Haberle’s debut follows a three-man expedition ordered by landowner José Menéndez (Alfredo Castro) to clear a trail for livestock. Tensions simmer between the trio – a British army captain (Mark Stanley), a Texan mercenary (Benjamin Westfall) and a Chilean native of mixed heritage (Camilo Arancibia) – and atrocities are committed. Set in 1901, this opaque exploration of the genocide of the Indigenous Selk’nam people, and Chile’s subsequent forging of a national identity, is slow-moving but punctuated by heart-stopping scenes.
GETTING IT BACK: THE STORY OF CYMANDE 12A
★★★★★ OUT 16 FEBRUARY CINEMAS 26 FEBRUARY BD, BFI PLAYER
Forged in 70s South London against a backdrop of rising racism, funk pioneers Cymande made otherworldly, melting-pot music that hit big in America, but was almost completely ignored back home. Catching up with the still-together group, Tim Mackenzie-Smith’s joyous doc offers some Searching for Sugar Man-style reappraisal. Talking heads, including producer Mark Ronson and DJs Norman Jay and Cut Chemist, explain how extraordinary songs such as The Message helped inspire hip-hop, disco and house. The Cymaissance starts here…
LIFT 12
★★★★★ OUT NOW NETFLIX
Distinctly echoing Netflix’s own Red Notice (starry cast, art theft, Interpol), this fun but by-numbers crime caper sees Kevin Hart’s heist crew team up with agent Gugu Mbatha-Raw in a bid to thwart a terror plot. Their mission? To swipe $500m of gold from a mid-flight passenger plane. Hart gives a surprisingly low-key performance, leaving heist-mates Billy Magnussen and Vincent D’Onofrio to bring the LOLs. At a tight 100 minutes, F. Gary Gray’s movie doesn’t overstay its welcome; it loses some altitude around the midpoint, but then builds to a pleasingly dramatic - if nonsensical - climax.
HAMLET TBC
★★★★★ OUT 27 FEBRUARY CINEMAS
Sean Mathias abridges his own age- and gender-blind stage production into a two-hour thriller, set in and around Windsor’s Theatre Royal. Coming across like an experimental dress rehearsal, this gimmicky version of the Bard’s revenge tragedy isn’t quite madness, but there’s precious little method in it. Ian McKellen’s droll Dane sporadically proves that brevity is the soul of wit, but here it’s mostly the enemy of nuance. With bizarre staging choices and outsized turns from at least two seasoned thesps, only its magnetic lead spares it from one-star ignominy.